Recent years have witnessed an expanding body of scholarship indicating that the importance of slave trade and slavery in early modern maritime Asia. This challenges the dominant attention for Atlantic slavery, but also urges scholars to reassess our perspectives on the history of slavery in Asia. The character and size of the slave trade in different parts of the Indian Ocean and Indonesian Archipelago Worlds have a pivotal role in this. In the wake of a number of path-breaking studies, new historical research has sparked off on the slave trade in different parts of maritime Asia.

Doing so, the workshop aims: 1) to bring together new research on the history of slave trade in maritime Asia from the 16th-19th centuries, 2) to compare and discuss recent research results, 3) and to discuss ways forward.

The workshop will address the following themes:

Size of slave trade

Findings on the size and development of slave trade

Estimates on the size and development of slave trade

Slave trade routes, connections between regions and shifts over time

Patterns of slave trade

Findings on the functioning and character of slave trade and slave markets

Findings on the (backgrounds of) slavers, slave traders and enslaved

Findings on the (role of) intermediaries in the slave trade

Sources on slave trade

Availability of source material (European, Asian and other sources)

Possibilities and limits of source material

Opportunities for future research projects and collaborations

The workshop aims to cover European both Asian contexts. Topics related to the slave trade can cover, but are not limited to, processes of enslavement, practices of slave trade, slave prices, slave markets, estimates of the size of slave trade, shifts in slave trade routes, impact of slave trade, contestation of slave trade, impact of states and companies, regulation of slave trade, manumission.

Abstracts of maximum 500 words, indicating the proposed topic, sources and research methods, can be send to mvr@iisg.nl before 10 August 2016.

Early career scholars (including PhD-researchers) who are currently engaged in source-based historical research on the slave trade in Asia are also encouraged to react.

The coordinators aim to provide information on the selection of contributions before 20 August 2016. Participants will be expected to send in their (concise) source-based research papers (at the latest) two weeks before the workshop. Participants will be asked to study all papers in advance as a way to prepare and facilitate our discussions at the workshop.